Neil Sorrentino

Tenet Healthcare Corp. has named Neil M. Sorrentino to head its expanded operations in Orange County and elsewhere in Southern California. Santa Barbara-based Tenet added 18 hospitals and several health care facilities to its Southern California network when it acquired OrNda. Sorrentino, 50, who will head operations based in Irvine, was most recently senior vice president for Tenet's Northern California region.

National Medical Enterprises Inc., Los Angeles, promoted Leonard P. Krygowski to group executive vice president and chief operating officer of its hospital group. He will direct the company's three national regions, the medical centers division (comprising the company's eight largest medical centers and hospitals in California and Texas), company-managed hospitals and the group's non-financial administrative activities. Neil M. Sorrentino was named to replace Krygowski.

Tenet Healthcare Corp., the No. 2 U.S. hospital chain, said Monday it reorganized the management of its 130 hospitals in an attempt to hold down costs and improve internal communication. The Santa Barbara-based company said its hospitals now are divided into three operating divisions instead of two. Tenet said the change is intended to let divisional leaders focus on fewer hospitals and to give chief executives of hospitals a shorter chain of command.

The long halls of Dominguez Medical Center are almost deserted now. The footsteps of the hospital's few remaining patients echo through the corridors. The voices of idle clerks and technicians waft along the walls. On a recent afternoon, maintenance workers stacked folding chairs in the main lobby following a job fair to help the facility's 550 non-physician employees find new jobs. "We're all very sad," said an emergency room clerk who would not give her name. "We don't know what's going on.

Tenet Healthcare Corp. said Monday that the executive in charge of its California hospital operations would retire this year as part of a broader reorganization. The departure of Neil M. Sorrentino, 56, a 29-year Tenet executive, is the latest change stemming from the problems at the Santa Barbara-based hospital company.

* Richard Andrews has been named vice president of the U.S. risk consulting division of EQE International in Newport Beach. Director of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services for California from 1991 to 1998, Andrews also served as senior policy advisor to the governor for public safety. * Lee Greytak has joined Orange Coast Title Co. in Santa Ana as vice president of finance and administration. He is responsible for all financial and human resource functions of the company.